A new bike and a potential world of gear

My new bicycle came in a week early and when I got the phone call yesterday I was pretty stoked. I’ve never been excited by the prospect of cycling before, but I’ve never been told I shouldn’t run anymore before either, so it works out nicely.

When I went to the shop (Action Bicycles in Universal City, Texas if you’re in the area) I had a few minutes to kill looking around and I was amazed at the amount of gear you can get with a bike. Then a voice in my head went off repeating a mantra you hear often amongst the British military, usually while talking about Americans – “All the gear and no idea.”

The fact the voice in my head was the Shadow’s voice should really come as no surprise to any but the first-time reader of this blog, but it did and it was her way of telling me from thousands of miles away to step away from the credit card.

But still it was fun to look – there is just all kinds of cool stuff from bike computers to tool kits to bags and pumps, lights and shirts, tires and levers and switches and…it was just candy-store like.

Still, I didn’t buy anything and today I went for my first ride. I already had a helmet and those gloves with no fingers (which really shouldn’t be considered an option if you enjoy your skin) and so with a song in my heart I found a park with miles and miles of trails. Not serious mountain biking trails with water obstacles and hills and stuff, but single-track trails that are plenty challenging when you’re 40 pounds of belly fat from where you need to be and haven’t ridden a bicycle with any alacrity since you were 6 when your bike’s banana seat matched those dangly things that were stuck into the handlebars. (You know what I’m talking about. You’re the guy who used to turn them like they were keys to start the bike – go ahead, admit it.)

Anyway, I’ve got pretty much everything I need except music but that’s not a big deal because it’s nice just to hear whatever noise it is you’re making or that nature makes sometimes. My phone has an app that will tell me how slow I’m going and how much distance I’ll cover and I’m pretty much set.

What I didn’t have, and again, if you’ve read this with any regularity you’ll not be surprised, what I didn’t have was any type of map. I figured I’d just follow trails until I came out of the woods again. That’s a great idea – if you’re an experienced rider who happened to bring any type of food substance with him. Not so good if it’s your first ride and you know in the back of your head there is the distinct possibility there could be walking involved. And swearing.



The camera in my phone isn't
great - trust me there are deer there.



About 40 minutes into the ride I heard an odd noise – that would be my phone. I have perhaps one of the nation’s least expansive phone systems and here in the middle of a very large treed space I was getting a call from the Shadow. Her timing, as ever, was impeccable because at that very spot where I stopped, not 30 feet away, were 4 deer – a mother and 3 fawns and they were just kind of standing there wanting to run away but knowing somewhere in their animal brains that I represented no threat whatsoever to anything other than perhaps myself. So we stared at each other for a while and then I carried on with my ride.

You don’t get to see that kind of thing as often when you’re running – usually because you’re too busy breathing or trying not to trip over tree routes or whatever, so it was a nice way to begin my relationship with my orange bike. It didn’t hurt that I found my way out of the woods fairly soon thereafter and didn’t have to consider which fingers I’d gnaw off first if it came to it.

When it was all done I’d ridden about 7-8 miles or so – not a huge distance by any means but it took an hour so the exercise was there and that’s really the point anyway.

Now as I write this, it’s several hours later and as I think about my visit to the bike shop yesterday, I realize one really important fact you would all do well to take note of should you embark upon a cycling as a way of getting/staying fit: as important as those gloves are, you’d do well to spend your first bit of cash on padded cycling shorts.